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This film is set in Harlem, of which 110th Street is an informal boundary line. By-the-book African-American Lieutenant William Pope (Kotto) has to work with crude, racist but streetwise Italian-American Captain Frank Mattelli (Quinn) in the NYPD's 27th precinct. They are looking for three black men who slaughtered seven men—three black gangsters and two Italian gangsters, as well as two patrol officers—in the robbery of $300,000 from a Mafia-owned Harlem policy bank. Mafia lieutenant Nick D'Salvio (Franciosa) and his two henchmen are also after the hoods. In one of many violent scenes, D'Salvio finds getaway driver Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas) and brutalizes him in a Harlem whorehouse.

The movie was filmed on location in Harlem, New York. The film is also notable as being the first feature film to use a self-blimped camera (the Arriflex 35BL) for sync sound; the much-reduced size of the camera allowed the production to not only use more hand-held shots and smaller locations than normal, but also record usable sound at the same time - an endeavor not previously possible under those circumstances.